"I have a home above, From sin and sorrow free; A mansion which eternal Love Designed and formed for me. "The Father's gracious hand Has built this blest abode; From everlasting it was planned, The dwelling-place of God. "The Saviour's precious blood Has made my title sure; He passed through death's dark, raging flood, To make my rest secure." These are the breathings of simple faith, and they perfectly harmonize with the groans of a spirit "that looks beyond its cage and longs to flee away." The believer finds his body of sin and death a heavy burden, and longs to be free from the encumbrance, and to be clothed upon with a body suited to his new and eternal state--a new creation body--a body perfectly free from every trace of mortality. This cannot be until the morning of resurrection, that glorious moment, long looked for, when the dead in Christ shall rise and the living saints be changed, in a moment; when death shall be swallowed up in victory, and mortality shall be swallowed up of life. It is for this we groan, not that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon. The unclothed state is not _the_ object, though we know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord; and to depart and be with Christ is far better. The Lord Jesus is waiting that glorious consummation, and we wait in sympathy with Him. Meanwhile, "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved in hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it" (Rom. viii. 22-25).